The College does not recommend that children should enter Class One before their tenth birthday. If they do, they will be tempted to enter university before their sixteenth birthday. We feel that the best time to come to secondary school is at the threshold of adolescence, especially when it involves leaving home to enter a school boarding house.
The College programme is not structured for caring for the needs of very young children who are still emotionally dependent on the close support of their parents. Our preferred age at entry would be 11 or near it. However gifted a child may be, he or she should have completed a full primary school education before coming to Adonai Vine School. The structure of the educational system in Nigeria reflects this and if children are rushed through the early stages, part of the purpose of the 6-3-3-4 system is being defeated.
Adonai Vine School aims to encourage leadership qualities in all students and to encourage responsible decision-making and independence of thought. We feel that we are not going to get very far with either of these aims if children leave school when they are barely 16. The best way of developing leaders in a boarding school is through the prefect system, and, indeed, as the school gets larger we need mature prefects for the efficient running of the boarding houses. This means that we need senior students who are young men and women, rather than children. Children who embark on a secondary school course too young are not usually chosen as leaders and as a result miss the opportunity to develop their full potential.